1. Alabama offering $5 incentive for inmates to get shots
- With Alabama trailing the nation in COVID-19 vaccinations, state prisons are offering $5 canteen credits to inmates to encourage more inoculations.
- The Department of Corrections, which said less than half of its more than 24,000 inmates have been vaccinated, is offering the canteen “grab bag” to inmates who get vaccinations and those who’ve already received shots, spokeswoman Kristi Simpson said.
- Items like snacks, candy and personal hygiene products typically are offered to inmates in prison stores.
- “Facility wardens (have) also been authorized to provide other incentives to encourage staff and inmates to receive a vaccination at their respective facilities,” she said in an email to The Associated Press.
- Nearly all of the latest infections and deaths are among people who have not been vaccinated, health officials have said.
- Gov. Kay Ivey has opposed incentives to encourage members of the general public to get shots, saying instead that “common sense” should be enough for people to get the free shots.
- Read more HERE.
2. Fauci says US headed in ‘wrong direction’ on coronavirus
- The United States is in an “unnecessary predicament” of soaring COVID-19 cases fueled by unvaccinated Americans and the virulent delta variant, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert said Sunday.
- “We’re going in the wrong direction,’’ said Dr. Anthony Fauci, describing himself as “very frustrated.”
- He said recommending that the vaccinated wear masks is “under active consideration’’ by the government’s leading public health officials. Also, booster shots may be suggested for people with suppressed immune systems who have been vaccinated, Fauci said.
- Fauci, who also serves President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that he has taken part in conversations about altering the mask guidelines.
- He noted that some local jurisdictions where infection rates are surging, such as Los Angeles County, are already calling on individuals to wear masks in public regardless of vaccination status. Fauci said those local rules are compatible with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation that the vaccinated do not need to wear masks in public.
- Read more HERE.
3. Grant to help fund transportation building at Alabama
- A $16.5 million grant will help fund a transportation research facility at the University of Alabama focused on electric vehicles, officials said.
- The project announced Friday was the largest portion of $23.5 million in funding approved for educational building projects by the Public School and College Authority.
- The building on the campus in Tuscaloosa will house the the Alabama Transportation Institute; the Alabama Mobility and Power Initiative, a partnership between Alabama Power Co. and Mercedes-Benz; and a state transportation agency office.
- A statement by Tuscaloosa-area lawmakers said the partnership will create a research and development center for technology related to electric vehicles.
- Read more HERE.
4. Beware of budget gimmicks in push for massive spending deals
- Senators fashioning a pair of colossal bills that would deliver more than $4 trillion for infrastructure, health care, environment and other initiatives insist they will fully pay for both plans.
- Will they?
- In a Washington ritual as reliable as panic-buying when light snow is forecast, both parties have long relied on toothless budget gimmicks to help finance their priorities. The contrivances let lawmakers claim they are being fiscally responsible while inflicting little pain on voters and contributors with tax increases or spending cuts.
- Read more about it HERE.
5. Activist who helped desegregate Birmingham library dies
- A Black Army veteran who helped peacefully desegregate an Alabama city’s library with a sit-in protest in 1963 has died, according to the library and an obituary published by his family.
- Shelly Millender Jr. of Birmingham died on Saturday. He was 86.
- Millender already was a veteran when he attended Miles College, a historically Black school where he was student government president and became active in the civil rights movement.
- Recruited by Southern Christian Leadership Conference director Wyatt T. Walker, Millender was among the students who staged a sit-in at Birmingham’s main downtown library on April 10, 1963, to demonstrate against a policy that banned Black people.
- “Shelly Millender engaged the librarian who told him you should be going to the colored library. Shelly said, ‘No I want to use this library,’” Wayne S. Wiegand, who wrote “The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism,” said in an interview with a library official in 2018.
- Read more about Millender HERE.
Headlines
ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Alabama offering $5 incentive for inmates to get shots
ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Fauci says US headed in ‘wrong direction’ on coronavirus
ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Grant to help fund transportation building at Alabama
ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Beware of budget gimmicks in push for massive spending deals
ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Activist who helped desegregate Birmingham library dies
ALABAMA DAILY NEWS – Daily News Digest – July 22, 2021
AL.COM – Alabama just saw the worst week since winter for COVID cases, hospitalizations: Week in review.
AL.COM – Biden praises Gov. Ivey for COVID vaccine remarks: ‘They’ve seen the Lord’.
AL.COM – ‘I’ve never been as frustrated professionally as I am right now’, UAB doctor says about low vaccination rate.
AL.COM – More protections sought for last wild Atlantic salmon in US.
AL.COM – Huntsville to study new connector between Redstone Arsenal, I-565.
AL.COM – Columnist Frances Coleman: Your words define who you are, often to your detriment.
AL.COM – Columnist Amanda Walker: Fried chicken, the diamond of Camden.
ALABAMA POLITICAL REPORTER – Former Alabama prison supervisor convicted for failing to intervene in beating.
YELLOWHAMMER NEWS – State Sen. Albritton: ‘I don’t think we have the time to sit back and wait’ on prison, gaming.
YELLOWHAMMER NEWS – Britt: Border crisis ‘a result of the weakness of the Biden administration’.
BAMA POLITICS – Contributor Clete Wetli: The Republican Suspension of Disbelief
THE HILL – Yellen to Congress: Raise the debt ceiling or risk ‘irreparable harm’.
THE HILL – Arizona secretary of state to Trump before rally: ‘Take your loss and accept it and move on’.
POLITICO – Virus resurgence menaces economy just as rescue programs unravel.
ROLL CALL – Conservatives riled up over registering women for draft: They believe it will motivate the GOP base in 2022.
DECATUR DAILY – Archives acquire witness stand used in Scottsboro Boys trials.
DECATUR DAILY – Crisis center for mentally ill patients planned.
FLORENCE TIMES DAILY – School officials: Mask not likely a requirement when school starts.
GADSDEN TIMES – ‘I fear I will bury a child’: Southern states vulnerable to COVID-19 delta variant surge.
WASHINGTON POST – Amid summer of fire and floods, a moment of truth for climate action.
WASHINGTON POST – ‘Complete, dysfunctional chaos’: Oklahoma reels after Supreme Court ruling on Indian tribes.
WASHINGTON POST – The Washington Post: Here’s what makes Texas’s ‘heartbeat’ abortion bill uniquely dangerous.
WASHINGTON POST – Bipartisan infrastructure bill in the Senate is an island in a sea of partisanship.
NEW YORK TIMES – Contributor Zeynep Tufekci: American Dysfunction Is the Biggest Barrier to Fighting Covid
NEW YORK TIMES – For Older Adults, Home Care Has Become Harder to Find
NEW YORK TIMES – Fauci Wants to Make Vaccines for the Next Pandemic Before It Hits